


In which Tarvek keeps his mouth shut

by Overlord_Bethany



Category: Girl Genius (Webcomic)
Genre: Ficlet, Gen, Pre-Canon, what a repulsive little man
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-20
Updated: 2017-08-20
Packaged: 2018-12-17 14:44:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 345
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11853738
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Overlord_Bethany/pseuds/Overlord_Bethany
Summary: There's no need to look surprised about that fact.





	In which Tarvek keeps his mouth shut

Aaronev frowned over the latest reports from Passholdt. He shuffled the papers in his stubby hands, squinted through his glasses, exhaled noisily. His son stood at the corner of the desk, still and silent, waiting. Aaronev set his glasses aside and pinched the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger. 

“Father,” Tarvek said, “if all this…  _business_  is so troublesome, why persist?”

Aaronev sat back in his chair, giving his son an appraising stare. “You never forget your first love,” he said. 

Ignoring the more revolting implications of his father’s words, Tarvek considered. First love? He found the idea almost laughable. He remembered, oh yes, he did remember. He remembered clasped hands, palm to palm, fingers interlaced, as two small boys trembled in the dark, fearing discovery. He remembered lying together on a high catwalk, feet pointed in opposite directions, head to shoulder, ears just touching as though they might hear one another’s thoughts. He had been so young, too young to understand what he felt. 

And he still felt the sting of Gil’s betrayal. 

Tarvek succeeded at keeping his expression impassive, for his father scoffed. “I suppose you wouldn’t understand,” Aaronev said. 

Tarvek thought of Gil sagging against him on a Paris street, gazing up at him in a drunken daze. He thought of the lingering scent of absinthe, of Gil leaning forward and tilting his face at a most appealing angle, thought of how in that moment he would have traded ten years of his life for just one taste of those tempting lips. But a prince and a nameless miscreant could not make a life together, and Gil’s pet pirate had dragged him off down the street before Tarvek had much opportunity to forget himself anyhow. Could he burn down a continent to make a new world, one in which he and Gil could be together? Probably. He had all the right tools. Would he do it? No, because he had  _responsibilities_ , a word apparently foreign to his father. 

“No,” Tarvek said, his voice and his expression steady. “I suppose not.”


End file.
